Ballast
by LimeSparkler
Summary: Felix's goals in life are simple: Go along with this crazy scheme so Mom and Dad will be safe. Keep Jenna out of trouble. Protect Sheba. Don't let anyone get killed. It's funny how that doesn't leave much time for living. (VERY) eventual swampshipping.
1. Chapter 1

Felix's day was not going well. He had fairly simple goals in life:

1. Go along with this crazy scheme so Mom and Dad would be safe

2. Keep Jenna out of trouble

3. Protect Sheba

and, most importantly,

4. Don't let anyone get killed

He was currently failing spectacularly at goals one, two, and four, but if he had any sort of luck at all he still had a chance at achieving number three. He'd forced his way to the top of the lighthouse just in time to see everything go wrong, and now he stood at the edge of the central platform with one hand holding Sheba's and the other clutching his sword, wondering whose side he ought to be on.

It should have been finished when Saturos lit the beacon, but the unleashed power was greater than he could have imagined, and Isaac - stupid, _stupid_ Isaac, showing up just in time to make a mess of everything - was too reckless for his own good. He'd barely won, the first time, and even with the beacon lit, and Saturos and Menardi fused together into some kind of fire-breathing abomination, he'd decided to fight again.

The tower trembled beneath his feet - Mother Gaia - and Felix swallowed thickly. He hadn't known Isaac was this strong, or this persistent. Someone was going to die. At first he'd thought it would be Isaac, but now he wasn't so sure. He didn't know if that should make him happy.

As purple lightning split the sky, he bit his lip and tried to make a plan. The beacon was lit. Sheba was still alive. If he were really lucky Jenna might even have done the sensible thing and gotten out of there before it was too late. That was something.

He could fix this. Somehow. He hoped. Saturos and Menardi wouldn't trust him again. Jenna - naive, eternally-optimistic Jenna - thought that Isaac could be reasoned with, but as Felix watched him fight he wasn't convinced. Isaac could beat him, easily; he had nothing compelling him to listen. And even if he did, what then? Would they invade Prox with seven people? Would his parents be allowed to live that long? With half the lighthouses active, would the world even last until then?

Isaac leapt forward to attack, and Felix cursed under his breath. Ignorant child.

Sheba tugged at his sleeve, looking worried. He supposed his thoughts didn't make a very pretty picture. He turned to her, and tried to act like he knew what he was doing. "Come on. Let's go."

"What -"

"It's not safe up here. Get under cover. When they're done… I'll sort it out."

She nodded, staring up at him with big green eyes, and he wished she weren't so trusting. He looked away, quickly, and began leading her down the steps, out of the way, even as the battle started in earnest again above them.

They huddled against the outside of the tower, barely protected underneath a decorative overhang, and waited for it to end. With each new volley, ancient dust shook free from the craggy walls, and he didn't trust the hallways not to collapse. He prayed to any power that was listening that the lift would still be functional when everything was said and done.

The battle raged on, air and water, fire and earth, and Felix's heart sank. Isaac couldn't win. Not now. Not against that…thing. Jupiter and Mars would be lit, but at the cost of four people's lives. His too, maybe. He was wondering how he'd explain it all to Jenna when a piercing shriek rent the air.

He waited two heartbeats, ten heartbeats, for an answering attack, and heard only silence.

And then - voices. Isaac's voice.

No.

They couldn't have…

He sprang to his feet and dashed up the steps, Sheba close behind. They reached the top in time to see Saturos and Menardi fall, lifeless, into the lighthouse well, and he'd barely had time to make sense of it when the tower began to shake. Next to him, Sheba stumbled, and a blinding light flashed from the beacon. Felix flung his arm up in front of his eyes and was thrown to the floor, a sound like a million shattered lifetimes thundering in his ears.

The impact knocked him dizzy and for too many agonizing moments he lay with his face pressed against the brick, coughing dust and hoping it wasn't the end. When his vision finally cleared, a gaping chasm yawned open where the steps had been, and Sheba -

Sheba?

"Felix!"

Behind him. He turned, and saw nothing but crumbling brick, and heard her cry again. "_Felix!_ Help!"

He didn't see her, until he looked down. There she was, dangling by her fingers from the aerie's edge.

No.

He dropped to his knees. "Take my hand!"

She let one hand go and with a terrified yelp flailed for his, barely brushing his gloves. Her other hand slid farther down the brick, and she slapped her free hand back into place, clinging for her life.

He willed his arm to stretch farther, to reach her hand - but it wasn't enough. _Please,_ he begged silently, and wondered if she heard it. "You have to try! If you don't, you'll fall!"

She stared up at him, tears in those big bright eyes, still trusting him to save her. He watched her fingers slipping and knew it couldn't be done. The tower shook, and she slipped some more, and looked down, all the way down. "The foundations of the lighthouse are crumbling," she whispered, and looked back up at him.

She knew he'd failed her.

He stretched his hand out farther, and tried to pretend his heart wasn't ripping in half. She was counting on him. They'd all been counting on him. Why did he always -

He gritted his teeth. No time to dwell on that, not now. "Don't let go! You can't!"

Her arms shook like mad, fingertips gone white. She smiled, sadly. "Goodbye, Felix. Thank you."

"No!" He slammed his chest against the stones and _reached_ for all he was worth, but his hand met nothing but open air. Over the edge he saw her, so small already, tumbling through the dusty sky -

For half a crazy second he wondered if maybe Wind Adepts knew how to fly, but she just kept falling, falling -

His vision blurred, and she was nothing more than a gold-and-white speck plummeting past the ends of his fingers. He'd lost her, too.

_No._

He hauled himself up on the heaving brick of the aerie, and swayed, dangerously close to the edge. He'd lost them all, and she was still falling. He'd failed, hadn't he? He'd failed everyone. Another broken promise in a long litany of the same. But maybe -

Maybe he could do something. Maybe there was still a chance.

He stepped back, to give it a running start, and tried not to think about the ocean at the bottom. With his heart beating a desperate staccato in his chest and a wordless yell screaming from his throat, Felix sprinted forward, and jumped.


	2. Chapter 2

The falling took forever, and yet no time at all.

Felix twisted head-over-heels through the air, unable to right himself, and had just enough time to realize the depths of his own stupidity before he hit the freezing waves.

By some miracle it didn't kill him, didn't knock him out, but the cold stung and the shock of it drove the air from his lungs. He gasped and flailed like a madman, trying his damnedest to stay afloat for all that he didn't know how, and as he flailed his arm struck something -

- white and gold -

- _Sheba!_

He grabbed her by the arm, and pulled her to him. She was alive and awake, thank everything, and kicking furiously.

"Can you swim?" he called, over the noise of wind and sea. Say yes, he prayed, please say yes. Please, he repeated silently, trying not to think of how it had been the last time, desperate for air and trapped alone in the cold wet dark -

"No!" A wave caught them, ducking her under the water until he yanked her back up. She coughed, and sputtered, and then she said exactly what he'd been hoping she wouldn't. "Can you?"

What good would knowing do her? "Just hang on!" He fished her up out of the water again and both of them kicked and thrashed, fighting a losing battle against the waves.

What had he been thinking? He hadn't been able to catch her and he knew he couldn't swim and now they were both going to die. At least he'd go down with her.

Or perhaps…

She seemed to have it almost figured out, almost managing to keep herself steady, but every time a wave hit she sank beneath the surface. Felix helped as best he could, seizing handfuls of her shirt and hauling her back up into the air, but he was also sinking, waterlogged clothing dragging him down. There was no chance for him, he knew, but she_ almost had it_.

Please, he thought again, she'd lived this long, please, it couldn't end just now -

- and she was getting tired, and he had no idea how to get to land.

Icy panic clawed its way up his chest, and he poured every bit of healing Psynergy he had through rapidly-numbing fingers, hoping desperately that it might make a difference. Even as he did it he felt the last of his reserves starting to go, and next to him, she slowly stopped her kicking.

When the next big wave hit, he had no strength to fight it. It pulled them under, and everything went black.

* * *

Felix was surprised to still be breathing.

The last thing he remembered was a flash of sparkling purple-blue. He'd thought it was the end.

Apparently not.

When he came to, the first thing he noticed was that his pack had survived the journey with him. The straps cut into his shoulders and he tried to shrug out of them, but found he couldn't move. Every inch of him ached as though he'd been beaten, and his arms refused to listen to his commands.

Dimly he became aware of noises above him. People talking. He listened, trying to place them, and recognized Jenna, and low murmuring from Kraden, and last but certainly not least Sheba, high-pitched and clear - all of them had made it, then, all of them alive. He would have wept from happiness, if he weren't so tired.

He let his head sink back against the sand instead and just let them talk, not really listening, as he tried to summon the energy to move.

Another voice sounded above him. "Felix, are you awake?"

_Alex._

His eyes snapped open.

Anger, it turned out, did wonders for one's motivation. He summoned every bit of willpower he had and forced his battered limbs to do his bidding, rolling to the side and shoving himself none-too-quickly to his feet.

Jenna started towards him, arms outstretched. She was bedraggled and covered in dirt and by the _elements_ he didn't think he'd ever seen a more beautiful sight. "Are you sure you should be standing?"

He waved her off, blinking in the sunlight and hoping Alex hadn't noticed how bad it was.

No such luck.

Alex stood slightly away from the rest of them, arms crossed. Unlike the others - soaked in seawater, covered in dust, and otherwise disheveled - he was absolutely pristine, without so much as a hair out of place. Felix's jaw tightened.

"So, Felix," he said with a poisonous little smile, "So very nice of you to finally join us. Once you saved Sheba you must have _swum_ out here, correct?"

He didn't answer.

Alex's smile widened. "You must have seen this island floating while you were _swimming_."

If Felix had been able to throw a decent punch, he might have, just to smack that grin off his sneering face, but his arms weren't listening. He bit his tongue instead, and stared him down.

Alex just smirked, and opened his mouth to say something else gloating, no doubt - but his mocking was cut short by a low rumbling from the ocean. Felix turned to it and saw to his horror a wall of water lurching up out of the sea - it had to be nearly as tall as the lighthouse had been, and it was coming toward them, and fast. He made a halfhearted attempt to get away, but his legs were uncooperative and in the end he could do little more than watch as the shadow loomed over the beach-head, and every fear he hated came to life.

He had just enough time to scream a curse at the roiling waters before the wave engulfed him, covering them all in silence.

* * *

This was really getting old.

Felix lay half-buried on the beach, washed up for the second time in as many days - sorer, hungrier, and significantly more sunburnt - and wondered why fate didn't just kill him already, since it was clearly trying to. He tried to express this displeasure and found he couldn't, his throat wrecked and gritty with sand.

He did the best he could, an embarrassingly high-pitched whining noise, and scowled up at the too-blue sky.

Unfair.

When glaring at the clouds didn't solve his problems, he sighed, and took stock of the situation. He couldn't see the others anywhere, or hear them. They must have been washed elsewhere. Or…

He wasn't thinking about that.

He was still alive. They had to be, too. They had to. And somehow, somehow, everything else be damned, there had to be a way that he could fix this. But how?

Judging by the fact that it felt like he was on his way to forming a permanent dent in his spine, he still had his pack. That was good. His arms still worked, although feebly. He supposed that was something. Groaning, he pushed himself up to inspect the rest.

His legs were in no better shape than his arms - but still attached, so at least he had that going for him. With one unsteady hand he peeled his hair away from his face and tried to think. What next?

The pack.

Getting it off his shoulders was more difficult than sitting had been, but with careful movement and a lot of mumbled oaths he managed.

The Jupiter star was still in there, glinting mockingly in the sun, but he had precious little else. A couple coins; not useful unless they found a place to spend them. The food was all destroyed, though his canteen had a few sips of fresh water left in it and he used this to try to get the sand out of his mouth. It almost worked.

At the bottom Felix found one lone healing herb that had somehow escaped the deluge and crunched it between his teeth, gagging on the bitterness. Not enough, but better than nothing.

When it had kicked in, and knocked the screaming pain down to a level of near-tolerability, he stood - and fell, and stood again - to shake the sand out of his clothes. Feeling slightly less gritty and slightly more human, he gave the sea one last baleful look and slowly staggered away from the coast.

As he limped along, he felt this first lingering bits of his Psynergy start to come back. When he had enough to make a difference, he stopped, and cast Cure. It didn't do much - he wasn't very strong at this, and the only reason he had any ability at all was because the alternative was letting Alex heal him - but as the power built up again he stopped and did the same, and after a few rounds of it he'd finally fixed some of the damage. By the time he spotted Sheba sitting on a hillock, he was walking almost normally, if at a snail's pace. It had given him plenty of chance to observe his surroundings, though, and he didn't like what he saw - none of this geography was familiar.

She'd set herself up on the highest point on the island, and greeted him with a wave. "Felix! I knew you'd make it!"

At least one of them had. "Are you hurt?"

She shook her head. "I've had worse."

He wasn't sure if falling from the lighthouse counted as 'worse,' but then again he didn't know much about her life pre-kidnapping. "How's your gear?"

She gestured to her pack, beside her, and held up… the Shaman's Rod. "Look what washed up!"

It had to be a miracle. For the first time in days he felt like smiling. His joy, however, was short-lived. He knelt down in the grass beside her, muscles screaming in protest, and wondered how to break this. "Sheba…"

"Hmm?"

"The earthquake moved everything. I don't know where we are anymore." He hesitated. "I don't think we can even get back to Lalivero."

She smiled at him, serenely. "Oh, that's all right."

"I think if we - _what?_"

"I'm not going to Lalivero. Not yet, anyway. I'll find it again when I'm meant to. But, Felix…" The smile vanished, and she leaned in, laying one delicate hand on his arm, her voice low and serious. "Felix, you're still going to Jupiter Lighthouse, aren't you?"

If he could figure out where the hell it was, and manage to stay alive long enough to get there. And if Weyard stayed together long enough to let him. "Yes."

"You need to take me with you."

His throat tightened. Why did these people think he was worth following? "Sheba, I know they said we needed a Jupiter Adept, but that doesn't mean you have to -"

She shook her head. "That's not it. It's my destiny."

"Are you feeling all right?" He frowned, and reached a hand for her forehead, but she ignored it.

"Don't you see?" she breathed, "It's fate. There are… things… I've always wanted to know and I _know_ that's where I'll find the answers." Her grip tightened. "You need to promise you'll take me with you."

Those eyes didn't belong to a fourteen-year-old. Who _was_ she?

She kept staring, and it took him too long to find his voice. "What things?"

_"Please."_

In that moment, on a hill at the edge of some godsforsaken island, with the heavy sun beating down on them and pure sincerity shining in her sea-glass eyes, she seemed impossibly childlike and impossibly old and he found that he couldn't imagine saying no to her.

Was that what she meant by fate?

Felix blinked, and suddenly she was an ordinary girl again, sand in her hair and bits of seaweed clinging to her boots. With a sigh he pushed himself to his feet, and held out a hand.

She took it, gleefully, and with her free hand pointed to the horizon, where newly-formed mountains rose against the sky. "The waves pushed this island aground, see? Hurray, Nature!"

Laughing brightly, she skipped off down the hill.

* * *

"Give - it - _back_! I'll turn you into charcoal, you son of a -"

They heard Jenna long before they saw her, spouting a stream of expletives vile enough to blister paint. Felix listened half in a amusement, and half in horror - he certainly hadn't taught her those words.

For a second he wondered if he ought to cover Sheba's ears, but she only grinned. "Ooh, she's not happy, is she?"

Definitely not, but as the torrent of ever-loudening profanity washed over them Felix's spirits rose. If Jenna had enough strength to carry on like that, the tsunami couldn't have hurt her too badly. They followed the shouting all the way to a small clearing and found Jenna - clothing still half-sodden and ponytail well askew - hopping up and down and yelling at a tree.

For a second he though his sister had gone mad, until Sheba tugged his arm, and pointed, and he saw that this particular tree contained some kind of monkey-monster, which happened to be holding Jenna's pack.

"Don't think I won't do it! I'll set this whole forest on fire if I have to!" She drew back her hand, fingers sparking, and might actually have started a forest fire if Sheba hadn't dashed forward and given the tree a sharp smack with her staff.

The thing chittered at her, once, and Sheba brandished it again, Jenna holding handfuls of flame behind her. With one more disgruntled chirp, it dropped her pack. Jenna grinned.

"Thanks! Have you seen -" she started, and then caught sight of him, standing at the edge of the clearing. "Felix!"

She ran to him, seizing him up into a bone-crushing hug. "You're alive!"

It hurt like hell on all the bruises, but Felix let her do it, not missing the way her breath hitched, or the shaky twitching of her shoulders. "Yeah," he said, faintly. "I'm alive."

Jenna's grip around his ribcage tightened and he shifted, trying to breathe. That seemed to bring her to her senses, and she pulled away with a muttered apology, while he pretended not to notice the way she brushed her cheek against his chest as she let go of him, nor the damp spot left behind.

She cleared her throat and scrubbed a hand across her red-rimmed eyes, and then straightened up to face him, shoulders square. "Kraden made it, too - he's that way. I was coming to look for you when that thing attacked me. You're sure you're all right?"

He nodded, and tried to smile, although it pulled the sunburn and ended up as more of a grimace than anything. It must have been convincing enough, however, because she turned to shake her fist at the offending tree - "You're lucky I'm leaving now!" - and led them back the way she'd come.

Kraden had come through it all right. They found him dozing under a tree, mumbling fitfully about lunch.

No one had seen Alex anywhere, but he had a habit of disappearing when things got tricky. Felix wasn't concerned. No doubt he'd teleported himself somewhere safe as soon as the wave struck. He probably hadn't even gotten wet.

Privately, Felix doubted if he'd ever be coming back. He said nothing about this, though, and with the others sat down to make a plan.

* * *

Above all else, one thing was clear: they needed a boat.

Without a boat they had no way of getting to Jupiter lighthouse - Kraden, at least, seemed to have a slight idea of where they needed to be, although he had a scant enough idea of where they were - but, as none of them knew anything about carpentry, without someone who already _had_ a boat to give them they had no way of getting one, and the wilderness wasn't exactly known for having a plethora of roaming boat-owners. They also, as Kraden so helpfully reminded him, hadn't eaten in two days, and along with boats civilization was known to have food.

Thus, they had to make it to civilization. If they could.

They'd unanimously elected Felix as leader, though for what reason he couldn't begin to fathom. His stomach twisted uneasily as he surveyed his ragtag group and tried to think up a strategy. They could all walk, at least, though perhaps not very quickly. Of more concern than walking was what they would be walking through.

"All right," he said. "Let's see. Who has weapons?"

Sheba hefted the Shaman's Rod, again, and Jenna held up a gnarled wooden stick. His own short sword had been a piece of junk even before it met with the ocean, but it would have to do. Kraden had nothing, but Felix expected him to stay out of the fighting anyway.

As for the fighting…

His heart sank. His skills were little better than a child's, and every attempt to improve them had always met swiftly with punishment. Jenna's were the same. He turned to Sheba. "Do you know anything about combat?"

She shook her head. "No. But I can do this!" She waved her hand, and with a loud _crack_ a bolt of lightning snapped out of the sky to strike a nearby rock. Felix jumped, and Jenna laughed and slapped her on the back.

"That's - good," he said, carefully stepping just a little further away. "If anyone attacks us, you just - do that."

Once he recovered, he'd have some useable Psynergy, and Jenna should as well. They'd have to learn the rest as they went along. "Right. We need a boat, and we need supplies. If we stick near the water line, it should take us to a town."

He took a deep breath, and tried to sound more confident than he felt. "Everyone ready?"

They nodded.

He hefted his pack. "Let's go."

* * *

They made decent progress, for all that they had no clue where they were going. Sheba climbed the tallest tree she could find and said she thought she saw smoke to the southwest, so they pressed on in that direction until nightfall.

Jenna sparked a fire to keep away the creatures and Felix took first watch, sitting atop a nearby boulder, his hand to the hilt of his sword. Aside from Jenna's pack, they'd had no incidents, yet, but he wasn't foolish enough to think that it would stay that way.

He'd been peering into the darkness for about an hour when Kraden climbed up to sit next to him, perching carefully at the edge of the rock. "Well," he said, once he'd finally gotten himself arranged. "It's been some day, hasn't it."

Felix laughed, humorlessly. "More like some year." He picked at a loose thread on his glove. "What's_ happening_, Kraden? That second wave that hit us - was that the lighthouse too?"

"I can't say for certain, but - I don't think so." The old scholar's face was grave. "I think that this may be something bigger than we've imagined. We need to light the beacons, yes, but there's something more happening, and we ought to find out what it is. Felix, I am not just saying this for the sake of my master - _we need to know_."

They already had a long list of impossible deeds to take care of. _Why do you bother trusting me?_ he wanted to ask, given how things had gone so far. Instead he looked over to where the flickering firelight cast craggy shadows across Kraden's face, making him look every bit his age, and couldn't bring himself to dash his hopes.

He nodded, slowly, and hoped this promise wouldn't be broken too. "We will."

Kraden glanced down at Jenna and Sheba, lying curled up with their backs to the flames. "When are you going to tell them?"

"I'm not."

"Felix-"

"Lighting the lighthouses goes against everything we were raised to believe. We're betraying our people." He stared into the fire. "When Jenna returns to Vale I want her to honestly be able to say she didn't choose this."

If they thought she was only trying to save her family, they'd probably forgive her. He owed her at least that much.

"And you?"

He didn't have an answer.


End file.
